Drive by blogging

Stuff to do today so just some pictures taken this morning in our garden.

Fried green tomatoes for dinner last night.  We had squash from the garden.

 

The Romas are starting to ripen.

We did not expect to have any grapes the first year.

 

I didn't even get a kiss

Before I get in to my thoughts I wanted to clear up something.  The biggest reason I blog is because I LOVE hearing other people's thoughts and opinions whether they agree with me or not!  For me there are few things more enjoyable than a passionate and polite discussion of differeing views.  So feel free to comment.  Expand on my thoughts, correct me if you think I have facts wrong or explain why you feel differently.  Now, on with the show....

The government has done a wonderful job of screwing the American people the last weeks...I mean, more than they usually do.  Let's start with the Supreme Court since they're my next door neighbours at work.


They struck down the bulk of Arizona's immigration law.  This essentially tells States that, while the federal government is not going to uphold the laws, the States can't protect themselves either.  It seems they've also decided that it's ok to break civil law....as long as you're not an American or in the country legally.  Honestly, if I were the southern border states I'd be starting to ask myself at exactly what point do the costs outweigh the benefits to being tied to this government.


The Supreme Court also upheld the Healthcare legislation.  Yup, the government has taken over our health care.  It's only logical since they've done such a fabulous job managing so many other social programs, for example..........<insert chirping crickets here>................yeah, you get the idea.  The government being in charge of your health just gives you the warm fuzzies doesn't it.


They also decided campaign funding works just peachy the way it is.  Guess if you're a rich patron/corporation wanting to buy an election for your candidate this is true.


On a bright spot they didn't get it all wrong.  They did decide that minors can't be sentenced to life in jail without parole.  I fully believe children should be held accountable for their actions but I also believe their age and such needs to be considered.


The President has decided to let a bunch of illegals stay in the country.  I'm still really fuzzy about when the definition of illegal changed and when we started feeling a need to cater to them.


It's not just the federal government that has run amok, amok, amok (I can never say that word just once thanks to a certain movie).  Mississippi has passed one of the most horrendous laws regarding abortions.  They don't even try to sugar coat it.  They want to eliminate in their state the ability to get an abortion for any reason.  Again, I firmly believe in State's Rights but if you're going to legislate your religious views then you'd better legislate all of them.  When is Mississippi going to pass the law requiring all residents to financially support a widow or orphan?


While we're on the subject, Arizona has passed an abortion law establishing a woman can be pregnant before she even conceives!!!  Remind me not to drink the water if I ever visit Arizona.


Don't know about you but I've had enough governmental dysfunction so let's take a look at the lighter side of new laws from our wonderful government.


Utah has outlawed Happy Hour.  Seriously, if you're in Utah what's there to be happy about anyway??
It's now illegal in New York to sell or trade bear gallbladders. *blink* I really don't even know what to say about this...I have nothing.
Illinois has passed a law allowing motorcycles to run red lights if the light fails to change to green after a "reasonable length of time".  Really?????




 

All hope is lost

Haven't blogged much lately.  No reason other than life has been busy.  But that doesn't mean there's not things stewing in my head that I want to say.
I've given up on American voters and I've lost all hope for this upcoming election.  It is inevitable we are going to end up with the same crap we've had, regardless of which of the two bad choices are elected.  Why is that? It's because of the American voters.
I've listened to a lot of people talk about voting and their method of choosing a candidate.  My conclusion is that Americans fall in to four categories when it comes to voting. 


1. The Non-Voter: This is pretty self-explanatory.  These are the people who are legally eligible to vote but don't.  The most common reason seems to be the whole "don't want to end up on jury duty".  Nice....really nice.  So not only are you shirking your responsibility as a voter, you're doing it so you can shirk your responsibility as a citizen. Nuff said.
2. The Lemming Voter: These are the people who are totally clueless about anything political.  They're lucky if they can name the President and Vice-President.  This ignorant state does not stop them from voting however.  Instead, they vote according to whatever their BFF, family or, even worse, the media tells them.  Or they base their choice on political ads....always a sound judgement.  Honestly, I'd just as soon these people fell in to the Non-Voter category. 
3. The Blind and Mindless Voter: I know a lot of these.  They tend to be the most vocal.  These voters are the ones who rabidly believe their party has all the right answers and the other party are demon spawn sent to destroy the world.  In other words, these voters vote straight down their party line.  They would never even consider the idea that another party's candidate might be a better choice.  I'm not really sure this is any improvement over the Lemmings.
4. The Cowards:  These are the people who know their politics.  They read and keep up with current events.  They realize the problems with our current government.  They know both of the main party candidates are bad choices.  They are the "enlightened" ones.  Sadly, they're also cowards.  They're cowards because they won't take a chance.  They won't follow their conscious and vote for the person they honestly think would do a better job.  They are so afraid of someone they don't want getting elected that they will vote for someone else they don't want.  Rather a perverse kind of logic, yes?  These are the voters who piss me off the most.  These are cowards.


You know, now that I think about it I suppose there's actually five types of voters.  There is the voter who has finally had enough.  Who is tired of the status quo.  This is the voter who has drawn the line in the sand and said, "Enough. I will no longer settle for two bad choices.  I will no longer allow the political parties to dictate my choices.  I will no longer let the government slide by with its bad behaviour, poor choices and self-serving ways."  These are the voters who believe the American people still can make a difference via the voting booth.  They believe it's time for our government to return to the idea that it should be of the people, by the people and for the people.  Not sure what you want to call this group of voters but I do know it's the group I want to be associated with.

It's a garden

A photo update of the garden goodness.

No cucumbers yet but at least the plants are finally starting to take off.  And for my garden savvy friends, no, the plant to the far left is not a cuke....its a dipper gourd.

We have peppers!!! Three to be exact so far.

It looks like we will have plenty of squash through the summer.

Even though most of our okra plants died, we have one plant doing well and an okra growing.  I'm going to start some new plants this weekend.

Our first tomatoes ripening!!  Can't wait to taste them.

 

Beans have been a struggle too but we're finally starting to see results.

 

My Romas are looking beautiful and there are tons of them.  Can't wait to start canning these.

This is the view of our sunflowers.  I'm standing under them looking up!

Here's how the garden looks today.

And now it's time for the close-ups.  A sunflower bloom starting.

I just love the fuzzies.

  

 

Updatedness: in other words....a bunch of nuttin.

Haven't posted in a few days.  We were in NC at Don's mother's for a long weekend.  His granddaughter came back with us to spend a few weeks up here.  So we'll be doing the DC touristy thing.
Was a good week at work.  I mean, besides the fact that it was only three days long.  The agency's central safety group is going through the jurisdictions and assessing the effectiveness of our various safety programs.  They assessed four of my programs last week and we met with them this week to discuss the results.  All of the programs did well but one of my programs got the highest rating...the only program in the agency so far to get that.  Yay me!  I can't take all the credit though.  We have some great shop personnel who take safety very seriously.
The garden is looking fabulous.  Our first tomatoes are starting to ripen.  We finally have green peppers and the sunflowers are taller than Don.  I'm going to try and get some photos tomorrow.
We did have an unplanned pickup while in NC.

The Evil Minion

Still working on a name for her.  Don calls her The Evil Minion so I'm leaning towards Evie or EM.  But we're open to all suggestions.

A few pictures from the trip.

Don and his youngest granddaughter, Autumn.

 

The Wonder of Family Pride

It's the 50th anniversary of the famed escape from Alcatraz.  Two of the three men who successfully escaped were brothers.  It seems their sisters recently visited Alcatraz and gave an interview.  And to quote one of the sisters;

"Just because they did this mischievous stuff growing up, they were not bad boys. They never caused no problems with the family. They just got out and did this mischievous stuff until it got to the bank robbery and that's when they really got into trouble," Taylor said. "I'm proud of them."


Awwww, doesn't such familial pride warm your heart??? *insert sarcasm here*

Growing up a Brat

I'm a military Brat....a Navy Brat to be precise and I'm very proud of my "heritage".  Over the years though I've found people don't really get how different growing up a Brat can be. 

Probably the hardest question to ask a Brat is "where are you from?"  Honestly, I still have no answer to that question.  In my first 18 years I lived in 6 countries, 5 states, 15 houses and went to 13 schools in 12 years.  I not "from" anywhere.  I don't have a home town.

All that moving makes life-long friendships pretty difficult. Not only did I move constantly but so did all my friends! I always feel a touch of envy for people who have those friendships that have been around since kindergarten.  And it's not like Brats can go back to the home town for a visit and run in to kids we grew up with.


Brats have to adjust to frequent changes in country, climate and cultures.  We have to learn to live among different ways of life, in some cases even totally different schedules.  In Bahrain I went to school Sunday - Thursday. We also have to sometimes learn to deal with unusual living conditions...like picking the weevils out of your cereal to eat it.


As a Brat, keeping up with American pop culture could be a challenge and that was important.  Knowing what was "hot" in the US gave me a connection...helped me feel like a part of America.  It could be costly at times though.  The going price in Italy among us Brats for Bubble Yum when it first came out was 25 cents for a piece!  Hey, it was a premium product....kids only had it if a relative sent them some from the States.  I can remember on the visits to the States we didn't care about the TV shows....we just wanted to watch the ads to see what was new.


And yes, most of my childhood was spent without TV.  The countries we lived in either didn't have any English-speaking TV or it only had an hour or two a day for news.  I grew up listening to Jack Benny, Burns and Allen and The Shadow on Armed Forces radio.  Let's not forget Wolfman Jack and Casey Kasem either.  Radio was my connection to the world.


I think the hardest thing though was when I came back to the States for college.  I'd lived out of the country for 9 of the last 11 years at that point.  I felt like a foreigner in my own country.  I went from one day being part of the military community on a base to the next day being totally cut off from everything I had ever known.  I honestly didn't understand what my fellow students were even talking about half the time.  Heck, to this day a lot of pop culture references are totally lost on me.  I didn't understand their world view and I'm sure they didn't understand mine either.  I missed the military community.  I still do.


Growing up a Brat is not the easiest childhood but, with all that I gained from the experience, I wouldn't change a second of it.